


Stopgap

by Anonymous



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BLT - Freeform, BLT is Barry/Lup/Taako my pals, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Implied Incest, M/M, Multi, NSFW, Penis In Vagina Sex, Stolen Century, Trans Male Character, Vaginal Fingering, actually its implied BLT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 17:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13505874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sometimes between a death and a new cycle you have to figure out ways to make it work.





	Stopgap

It's raining, which means no one can see his tears. Not that anyone on the crew hasn't seen Barry cry, but he's cold and he just feels – well – he wants to be alone.  
  
It is cold.  
  
Magnus guides him down a slope, into a gulley. They have to be careful down here, obviously. There's a reason why the twins were ambushed. There’s a reason why one of them died. Barry wishes he were numb to it. He's slow climbing over the rock faces, because even if he wants to die a little, he doesn't want Magnus to have to watch.  
  
Barry and the twins-- they're close. They're very close, and the rest of the crew has started relying on that. He knows who is who, intimately. The rest of the crew tells the difference by mannerisms, by who refers to who as what, but Barry can tell even in a lifeless body. He's watched both of them sleep before. He's seen both of them dead before. Most of all, Barry pays attention.  
  
It'd already been raining when Magnus had burst in through the door, back from short reconnaissance, and announced that he'd found a body.  
  
An elf body.  
  
“I don't know who it is,” Magnus had admitted, his voice trembling. “I don't know who died. I don't know where the other one is. I--”  
Barry was already putting on his robe, pulling the red hood over his head. His hair was going to get soaked through the thin fabric anyway, but he hadn't felt like facing other people's pity.  
  
“I'm coming,” he'd said, fingers shaking already as he shuts the clasp on the robe.  
  
“I'm so sorry,” Magnus says, making no effort to hide his own exhaustion, his sadness. Barry rubs his back with a hand as they step back into the cold and wet.

He does, in fact, slip and fall closer to the bottom of the gulley, hitting his head. There's a moment of darkness. He must have blacked out. He surfaces from the haze of pain to Magnus fussing over him, but shoves him away as he sits up. He's fine, it doesn't matter, where was the – where were they. Show me the body.  
  
It's Lup. Her neck is snapped, her jugular torn, her eyes wide and wild. One of her iconic elven front teeth is missing and the sides of her head are bloody holes where her ears used to be. The ringing in Barry's ears intensifies as he stares, and then he gets to work – because they're never getting her back out of the gulley, not happening. Especially not if Barry has a concussion, because Magnus would have to carry two bodies. Not that he plans on fainting, but he feels too dizzy to make it back up out of the trench on his own.  
  
“Lup,” he rasps. Sometimes he forgets that he has to vocalize his thoughts for others to know what he's thinking. It doesn't help that the world around him is swaying like he's at sea, a gentle throb radiating from a place at the back of his skull.  
  
He closes her eyes, folds her arms on her chest, and straightens her body so it's not so spread-eagled. He takes off her robe and covers her with it.  
  
The world rocks, gently, and Magnus puts a hand on Barry's shoulder to steady him. He hadn't even realized he was moving.  
“Should we find Taako?” Magnus asks.  
  
“I don't know,” Barry says, his voice reedy. The dizziness is catching up to him. Does he have the energy for a search and rescue mission? Probably not. He wants to sit down. Sit down and not get up. Hug Lup and cry till they wake up in the next cycle.  
Then, the world pitches forward into blackness.

Barry doesn't want to resurface. He knows something bad happened, and he doesn't want to face it.  
  
Also, his head hurts a lot, but you know, whatever.  
  
He does finally wake up, though, because the pain has gotten to the point of too much to bear and he finds sleep and unconsciousness escaping him. It occurs, to some small, still-functioning scientific part of him, that the pain he's feeling may actually be reducing, not increasing. His mouth tastes like talc powder. He whimpers.  
  
A voice somewhere above him is talking. He can hear them drone, and it's not – It's not who he needs. It's not who he needs.  
  
He drifts back into some form of darkness.

Barry's stone of farspeech is rumbling on his desk.  
  
He's woken up to that before-- but it's never been the sort of thing that yanked him viscerally back to the waking world, nor a reason for pain. He can't remember why at the pain-- why does his head hurt? He throws off his sheets and stumbles to his desk to answer the call. In moments like this, it's lucky his room is so puny.  
  
It's glowing mauve. Taako's color. He picks it up.  
  
“Barry?”  
  
Doesn't sound like Taako. Barry almost hangs up. He falls down into his desk chair, head pulsating with pain.  
  
“Hey,” he says. He's not sounding much like himself either, he realizes.  
  
“Barry I'm lost,” the squeaky, too high version of Taako's voice says. The intonation at the end of lost tells him that yes, okay, this is definitely Taako. His heart jumps to his throat.  
  
“I can track your farspeech signal. Stay on the line, yeah? Makes it easier.”  
  
“Yeah,” Taako says.  
  
It's then that Barry remembers the events of the previous night.  
  
(It doesn't help; it doesn't help that his head was already hurting, it doesn't help that he's on the phone with Taako.)  
  
Barry puts his head down on his desk and chokes on a sob.  
  
“Barry?”  
  
“Taako, Lup's dead.”  
  
Taako laughs, a little hysterical cackle. “Oh homie,” his voice cracks. “I know. I was there.”  
  
That makes Barry laugh, too, hiccuping through his tears. He's pretty sure Taako's crying. He can hear it through the laughter.  
  
“I'm gonna track your farspeech signal now,” Barry slurs. His head throbs. He wants to just sorta leave it on the table and stare at the soft light coming from the stone but he needs to trace Taako's farspeech signal.  
  
“Barry, are you okay?”  
  
“Concussion,” Barry says.  
  
“Oh, sure.”  
  
“Pretty sure your situation is worse.”  
  
“yeah, well, I have got some bigass knife through my ankle, so ya should probably send Magnus to get me.”  
  
“WHAT THE FUCK, TAAKO?!!” Barry makes his own head ring, and lowers his voice. “That's – you should have mentioned that first!!”  
  
“S not a big deal, I stopped the bleeding. Can't feel my leg from the knee down but. It's fine. Barry, just, breathe, figure out where I am, yeah? Gods I missed you, I miss you so much.”  
  
Taako's not one for words of comfort. He seems all the more serious when he opens up like that.  
  
Barry forces himself to focus on tracking the signal of Taako's stone of Farspeech. Words swim around on the page a lot and he's afraid he got it wrong. He'll have to have Davenport look at it. He would ask Lup, but she's dead.  
  
He doesn't realize it's very early morning till he stumbles out of his tiny secluded bedroom and down the hall, passing a window. He groans, and heads towards the captain's quarters. Luckily, it doesn't take too much work to rouse the gnome, though getting Magnus up takes a little more work. The poor man is still exhausted from their trip to the gulley. Barry realizes he probably had to carry him out of the pit when he passed out.  
  
Taako listens silently to all of it, only saying “m still here,” when prompted by Davenport.  
  
“Barry is going to give his stone to Magnus so you can stay on the line,” Davenport says.  
  
Barry leans against the wall. It's too bright in the ship's hallways, anyway. He shuts his eyes, but the light remains, making his eyelids bright red. Red pain. He feels weak and gross.  
  
“Any information on Lucretia?”  
  
“No, we still have no idea where she is. Judging by recent events I'd say it's safe to assume she's dead. She'll either come back or contact us if we're wrong. You should get going.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
He hears Magnus's footsteps head in the direction of the entrance.  
  
“How are you holding up, Barry?” Davenport asks.  
  
His legs choose that moment to give out under him and Barry hits the floor with a thud that sends a shock through his spine and into his already painful skull. He lets it fall back against the wall and groans. “I'm not.”  
  
“I can never tell when you're being dramatic or not.” A long pause. Barry's sure he can hear Davenport's tail swish back and forth. “Do you need a healing potion?”  
  
Barry stifles another groan. If he can't hold it together in front of his captain, where could he? “I can't… Save them, I'm fine.”  
  
“You're definitely not at peak performance,” Davenport says.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I wish we had Merle.”  
  
“Mngh.”  
  
He hears Davenport cast levitate, feels the man guiding his body down the hall. It would be okay if it weren't for the fact that everything grounding him in reality was gone while he was floating.  
  
It's a relief when he's back in his bed. Davenport says something, probably along the lines of get some rest, but Barry's way ahead of him there. The soft lamplight radiating from his desk turns off and Barry is plunged into blissful pitch-blackness. He sinks into sleep.

“Barry.”  
  
Someone's shaking his shoulder.  
  
“Ngh.”  
  
“Ohey.” They smell like rain. Magnus. It's still raining, apparently. “Taako's back. He wants to see you. Dav's trying to figure out what to do about his foot.”  
  
“M not a doctor,” Barry grumbles, rolling over so he can see. The overhead light, thank fucking gods, is not on.  
  
“No. you're like, his best friend or his fuckbuddy or something. Get up, dingus.” Magnus steps back from the bed so Barry has a chance to roll over and land on the floor. He's still wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing… yesterday? When he woke up, last night, in underwear and a bathrobe. His glasses are terribly smudged from being slept on. He finds his robe, thankfully clean, and rubs the oil off the lenses.  
  
“I'm coming,” Barry mutters. He finds his sunglasses first, though, and clips them on over his glasses. He shuffles out into the hall after Magnus, fixing his robe.  
  
“oOW FUCK!” Barry hears from down the hall. He would break into a run, but his head hurts too much. There's a certain amount of dissociative emotionlessness that's ghosted after him since seeing Lup dead, too. It's good to hear Taako's voice, though.  
Magnus actually does break out into a run, leaving Barry to trudge slowly in the direction of the living quarters, a hand on the wall. It's much easier to do this with his sunglasses on.  
  
Taako's sitting on the couch, foot on the table, chest heaving. Davenport seems to have removed the knife, and he's burning the wound shut with a produce flame-- none of them are medics, and Taako's probably not going to walk for the rest of the cycle. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, obviously in intense amounts of pain.  
  
“Hey listen, I know I didn't want a healing potion, but Taako got a knife through his foot and he doesn't look like he's gonna last.” His voice is pretty quiet, but Magnus hears him, hears the stern tone. Barry points at the kitchen and Magnus skidaddles, coming back with a plain looking medium strength healing potion. It'd have to do.  
  
Barry makes his way over to the couch and plops down next to Taako, taking the potion from Magnus and holding it to Taako's lips. He's aware enough to open his mouth and swallow at Barry's behest, but Barry knows that healing potions often do little for pain, even if they do repair tissue and replenish strength.  
  
Davenport ties off the bandage on Taako's leg and steps back around the table. “Gods this cycle has bitten our tails,” He groans.  
  
“Cap'n'port, you're the only one here with a tail.”  
  
Davenport gives Magnus a look. Magnus shuts up and stands a little straighter.  
  
“We're done here. Magnus, take Taako to his room. Barry, get some rest. Goodnight. Goodbye.” He storms off down the hall.  
  
“He's exhausted,” Barry says. Magnus startles and stares at him. Barry hasn't told anyone about his and Davenport's thing. He knows a few more things about Davenport than the rest of the crew.  
  
When Barry doesn't elaborate, Magnus just picks Taako up and carries him to his bedroom. Barry putters along behind them, and shuts the door behind him once Magnus leaves.  
  
Taako stares at Barry with glassy eyes. “Babe,” he mumbles.  
  
“Hi, Taako.” He walks across the room, taking off his glasses and folding them on the bedside table.  
  
“How's yr head?”  
  
“It's… It's fine.”  
  
“Mngh.” Taako knows he's lying. Barry climbs over him and settles on his other side, wrapping his arms around him.  
  
“Love you,” Taako mumbles.  
  
“I love you too,” Barry says.

It's empty, without Lup there. Taako sleeps better with her around. He sleeps okay in Barry's arms, but Barry isn't Lup. Lup's gone, this cycle, she's just gone and she's not coming back. She's not missing the way Lucretia is. She's just gone.  
  
There's an emptiness to the ship, what with so many people dead. An emptiness to Barry and Taako's moments alone together. An emptiness to everything, even Barry's mind, even as he heals and finds himself playing crutch for Taako more often than not. Taako's much taller than him, which Lup would probably laugh at.  
  
Eventually, Taako gives up and deems himself bedridden. He spends a lot of time curled around a pillow in his room. He doesn't cry much, but his emotions run off his skin in waves. A few times, Barry brings him food and finds himself engulfed in Taako, surrounded by Taako, and he gives in and lets himself be consumed. They lie in bed together, awake but not caring to move or act. It's fine. Barry cries, sometimes, because it's painful to lose someone you care about. It's painful and Barry's got room to fall apart, sometimes.  
  
Taako doesn't cry.  
  
He presses himself against Barry, his ear close to Barry's chest, his face against his collarbone. They fall asleep intertwined.

There comes a morning when Taako rolls over, and his face is so close to Barry's, his breath so gentle, that Barry leans forward and presses his lips against Taako's. The moment brings them back, distracts them from their mourning as Taako eatsBarry out, making him tremble apart. Barry has to bite down on his hand several times to keep from yelling as he comes. Later, he finds his nose against Taako's balls, or Taako's hands kneading his breasts, and he thinks of Lup, but not in a sad way. He knows Taako thinks of Lup too.  
Together, they can at least try to make up for the gap in their hearts.  
  
Barry tells himself the exercise is good for him.

“My foot might be outta commission, but I'm glad as fuck the rest a me works,” Taako mutters into Barry's neck. His hand is working its way up Barry's front, kneading his soft belly, caressing his breasts. A lot of evenings start this way, now, and Barry's not complaining. It's almost a sleep aid, especially on a planet where there's no chance of finding melatonin.  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Taako kisses his collarbone, his jaw. He nuzzles Barry's cheeks. His skin is soft and pleasant against Barry's own. Another hand has found its way down between Barry's legs, gentle against the slickness there.  
  
It feels natural, letting Taako climb all over him, unbutton his shirt and his pants and touch him, gentler than Barry knew Taako could be. It feels nothing like Lup. Where Lup is a whirlwind or a forest fire, Taako is a cool summer thunderstorm, sometimes fast, other times slow and gentle and relieving. Meeting Taako for the first time, he would have never guessed how gentle he can be in the bedroom.  
  
Not that Taako's always gentle-- he can be anything in the bedroom. This cycle, though, he's only been gentle.  
  
“You good?” Taako's voice jolts Barry back to the moment. “You were spacing out.”  
  
“Yeah.” Right. Now is the time for oddly vanilla sex with raunchy elf men.  
  
“Mm.” Taako kisses him, just for a moment, his dick against Barry's entrance. “This good?”  
  
“Y-yeah,” Barry says, leaning forward again, towards Taako's soft lips. “I love you.”  
  
“Oh, gods,” Taako chokes on a breath, putting his head in the space between Barry's shoulder and head. He hiccups on what sounds like a sob.  
  
“Taako?” Barry runs a hand over Taako's back, trying to comfort him. He's shaking.  
  
He hasn't cried all cycle. Was this inevitable? There's things that even Barry doesn't know about the twins. “What's --”  
“I miss her so much,” Taako chokes.  
  
“Taako, are you having an emotional breakdown with your dick in me?” Barry asks. He tries to keep his voice soft.  
  
Taako laughs. “Guess so.”  
  
They sit there for a few minutes. Barry keeps petting Taako, because it seems to be helping, if marginally. He runs his fingers through long blonde hair. He wonders if the acid burn scars feel anything like the fire burn scars on Lup's hands, to Taako. They've compared before, of course, but there's little differences that Taako notices that Barry would have never seen. He breathes against Taako's hair and slowly he stops crying, sits up.  
  
“Can I nail you to the bed?”  
  
Barry's a little taken aback by this request. “Uh, sure?”  
  
“Cool.” Taako flips Barry over.  
It's the roughest sex they've had all cycle, but it feels good. It feels a little like Taako's back.

The first thing he does is hug Lup. They hold each other for minutes, wrapped around each other like two pieces of a two-piece puzzle. When he steps back, Taako exclaims “I can walk now!” and goes skipping downstairs into the starblaster.  
  
“Thanks for taking care of him,” Lup says as she passes Barry.  
  
He blinks. “Oh, yeah,” he says. He's not sure what she means, but that's okay.  
  
He takes a deep breath and heads down after Taako.


End file.
